Tuesday, December 22, 2009

At Year's (but not Wit's) End

This year (like all of them since I got on the other side of 30) has flown by. Seems it was just yesterday that we were reviewing the branding agency finalists (it was December 2008) and here we are with 3 months of the strategy live and kicking (and being very well received). In 2010 (why do some people say "20 and 10"), I am looking forward to more fabulous one on one (or one on two or three) lunches/breakfasts with staff members I don't get to spend as much time with as others. I have really enjoyed those this year and have learned a lot. As I shared with my lunch mate yesterday, I want to hear your ideas for how we can serve BJC even better. So, send them to me at anytime -- I am always e-mailable and really appreciate hearing from you. I also hope to get out of the office more and do something I encourage each of you to do -- take a CLL course or two, attend a conference, and do more continuous learning in the fields that will help make one of the best departments even better (gee, seems I have seen those words before).
I could not let the year past without saying thanks to each and every one of you who do such great work (I know I did this in the last post, but you can never be too appreciative). I also want to especially thank, Barbara Reynolds, who goes above and beyond in everything she does to support our department. It is fabulous to have a true partner who is always willing to go the extra miles that are sometimes required and to go those miles with such a wonderful spirit. She is among the true blessings in my life.
Have a great 2010 and I look forward to hearing from you all.
J

Friday, December 4, 2009

Doing More

How about this? I am posting exactly 2 weeks (my new goal) after my last one. As we near the end of another year, I marvel at how quickly time flies and how much we are able to get done in such a short span of time. For example, we developed a relationship with a new web vendor and are migrating all of our websites to that vendor. This will allow our IS department to focus on the many clinical information services needs of BJC and allow us to keep content fresh and evolving on our websites -- which we know have exponentially elevated in importance to consumers. Thanks to Patt and everyone on her team for the due diligence and hard work to get us where we are. If you want to see an early glimpse of what the move to our new vendor will produce, check out the new website for Barnes-Jewish Hospital. It is truly stunning!
Our Creative Services team continued to serve more and more client requests with the same number of staff. The comments on the quality of work by this 'inhouse agency' continue to be very positive. Whether it is designing a simple (is there any such animal) brochure or developing new logos (I think we did about 4 hospitals this year) and icons (too many to count) the clients are happy with their products. Thanks to Andy and team for all you do.
Kudos continue to pour in for the work done by our Media Services team. They are adapting to all the demands of new media and not missing a beat. They took on the added duties of providing video services as part of communications training and the clients who have taken advantage of this training share that being able to see how they look when answering questions has been very helpfu. And, the Media Services space looks better than ever. A big Shout Out (what happened to these) to Tracie and her team.
Every other week, we are fortunate to have a newspaper that not only looks great (love the new design that incorporates one photo on the front page), but has information that is need-to-know, interesting-to-know and fun-to-know (Off the Cuff) for our employees. As hospital dedicated staff for the paper has shrunk, our BJC Today team has managed to make sure that the content has not missed a beat. Patty and her team truly do a great job in publishing a paper that is worthy of bearing the BJC name.
When it comes to making a difference in the community, our small but mighty, Community Affairs and Community Benefit team goes the distance. From overseeing the Healthy Mind Body Spirit initiative to working with other non-profit organizations focused on the underserved in our communities to gathering all the data from our hospitals/service organizations to ensure we are accurate in our reporting, Debra & team and Karley are to be commended. It is work that is both rewarding and challenging.
Positively positioning BJC and our service organizations and selected hospitals has never been more important and Karen and her team have consistently managed to stretch very limited resources and create value-added strategies for their many clients. I continue to be amazed that so much can be achieved by such a small staff. In the words of a luncheon master of ceremonies that I heard yesterday, You Go Girls!
And, last month we welcomed Kathleen and her portfolio of Health Literacy, School Outreach, Community Health Services and St. Louis OASIS to our department. Aligning these functions with us will allow even more opportunities to work together in improving and communicating BJC's commitment to healthy communities. This team is expert at this work as evidenced by the recognition of BJC as THE health care organization in our region focused on keeping people healthy. Congrats to Kathleen and her team and welcome!
Lastly, a huge thank you to everyone on our team for helping to birth our new BJC branding strategy. From Barbara who is the meeting coordinator guru, to Sylvia who helped to manage gathering of talent, to Kim who helped with content and context for the new social media site, I cannot say thank you enough. The campaign has been embraced by our employees and that is truly the audience that matters most. It has been a busy year, but a rewarding one and I am so blessed to work with each of you.
J